Tuesday, June 02, 2015

@JeffreyGoldberg agrees with 'only 46%' of this mainstream Israeli viewpoint

@JeffreyGoldberg publishes a lengthy critique of his recent interview with, and a speech by President Obama. The critique was written by Yossi Kuperwasser, who until recently was the director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and was formerly a special security consultant to the Prime Minister's office. Goldberg describes it - legitimately - as a mainstream Israeli viewpoint, which has to make me wonder with which 54% of what Kuperwasser writes, self-proclaimed Israel supporter Goldberg disagrees. A few highlights.

During the recent Israeli elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
statements regarding the possibility of a Palestinian state and Arab
Israeli voters triggered a global uproar, leading the prime minister to
quickly issue the necessary clarifications. Nevertheless, the president
accused the prime minister of betraying Israel’s core values, which he
attributed to the likes of the kibbutzim and Moshe Dayan. The
president’s statements betray a lack of understanding of both the past
and present. Moshe Dayan and Netanyahu, for one, were not that
different. Both were eager for peace, but at the same time realistic
about the need for security due to the Palestinian refusal to accept the
Jewish state. Dayan opposed a retreat to the 1967 borders, and in his
famous eulogy for Roi Rotberg, he warned against making dangerous
concessions. Obama also referenced Golda Meir, who famously denied the
existence of the Palestinian people.

President Obama’s anger toward Netanyahu is misplaced, especially
given his extraordinary lack of criticism of Palestinians for far more
egregious behavior. The Palestinians, after all, are the ones who
refused to accept the president’s formula for extending the peace
negotiations. It is Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) who
have called for “popular resistance,” which has led in recent years to
stabbings, stonings, and attacks with cars and Molotov cocktails against
Israelis. Since the PA ended the peace negotiations, there has been a
sharp increase in attacks and casualties in Israel. Hamas, for its part,
openly calls for the extermination of Israelis and sacrifices a
generation of children towards that goal.

In response to these threats, all the president had to say at Adas
Israel was that “the Palestinians are not the easiest of partners.”
Rather than recognizing how fundamentally different Palestinian
political culture is, the president offered slogans about how
Palestinian youth are just like any other in the world. This is a
classic example of the mirror-imaging—the projection of his own values
onto another culture—that has plagued most of his foreign policy.

...

So why does Obama pick on Netanyahu and not on Abbas? The most likely
reason is directly related to a conflict in the West between two
schools of thought, both dedicated to defending democratic and
Judeo-Christian values: Optimism and realism. Obama is a remarkable
proponent for the optimist approach—he fundamentally believes in human
decency, and therefore in dialogue and engagement as the best way to
overcome conflict. He is also motivated by guilt over the West’s
collective sins, which led, he believes, to the current impoverishment
of Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular. He believes that
humility and concessions can salve the wound, and Islamists can be
convinced to accept a global civil society. “If we’re nice to them,
they’ll be nice to us,” Obama thinks.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is a realist. Due in part to Israel’s
tumultuous neighborhood, he has a much more skeptical attitude of
Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian President
Rouhani’s government. Netanyahu does not see these groups as potential
moderates, willing to play by the international community’s rules;
instead, he acknowledges their radicalism, and their intent to undermine
a world order they consider a humiliating insult to Islam. The major
difference between the Islamists and the extremists, according to
Netanyahu, is one of timing. The Islamists are willing to wait until the
time is ripe to overthrow the existing world order.

Western realists worry that optimists are actively aiding Islamists
in the naïve hope that they will block out the extremists. The realists
believe that a resolute stance, with the use of military force as an
option, is the best way to achieve agreed-upon Western goals. Obama both
prefers the optimist approach and believes that his hopeful dialogues
will achieve the best possible outcome. Netanyahu, on the other hand,
whose nation would feel the most immediate consequences from Western
concessions, does not have the luxury of optimism.

This helps explain why Obama targets Netanyahu for criticism. The
prime minister’s insistence on the dangers of the optimist approach
threatens to expose the inherent weakness of Obama’s worldview and
challenge the president’s assumption that his policy necessarily leads
to the best possible solutions. For Netanyahu and almost everybody in
Israel, as well as pragmatic Arabs, the president’s readiness to assume
responsibility for Iran’s future nuclear weapons, as he told Jeffrey
Goldberg, is no comfort. The realists are not playing a blame game; they
are trying to save their lives and their civilization. To those who
face an existential threat, Obama’s argument sounds appalling.

...

Should Israel at this moment aid in the creation of a Palestinian
state, half of which is already controlled by extremists who last summer
rained down thousands of rockets on Israel, while its leaders urge
their people to reject Israel as the sovereign nation-state of the
Jewish people? Should it aid a movement that follows these five pillars:
1) There is no such thing as the Jewish people; 2) The Jews have no
history of sovereignty in the land of Israel, so the Jewish state’s
demise is inevitable and justified; 3) The struggle against Israel by all
means is legitimate, and the means should be based simply on
cost-benefit analysis; 4) The Jews in general, and Zionists in
particular, are the worst creatures ever created; And 5) because the
Palestinians are victims, they should not be held responsible or
accountable for any obstacles they may throw up to peace?

In short, even though Israel, under Prime Minister Netanyahu, remains
committed to the formula of “two states for two peoples, with mutual
recognition,” the implementation of this idea at this point is
irrelevant. The PA’s poor governance and the general turmoil in the
Middle East render any establishment of a Palestinian state right now
unviable. President Obama admitted as much, reluctantly, but continued
to criticize Netanyahu instead of betraying his optimist paradigm.
Netanyahu’s realism would stray too far from the path Obama, and other
Western leaders, have set in front of them. But while Obama and the
optimists offer their critiques, Netanyahu and the realists will be on
the ground, living with the consequences the optimists have wrought.

Kuperwasser's view is very definitely mainstream Israeli. While not all Israelis have reached the conclusion that I have - that there will never be peace with the 'Palestinians' - a poll before our recent elections showed that two thirds of Israelis believe that there will be no peace with the 'Palestinians' now regardless of who heads the government. That doesn't comport with Obama's timetable, which comes to an end on January 20, 2017, but it's reality.

Most Israelis don't trust the 'Palestinians' and haven't since Yasser Arafat orchestrated his 'second intifada' in September 2000 (you'd be amazed how trusting Israelis were in the '90's). We don't trust Iran either. We've heard too many people say that they want to kill us, and we know that we have to take such threats seriously. Some Arab commentators refer to that as a 'bunker mentality.' But they've never lived with random suicide bombers and rocket attacks as we have. They've never sent their kids off to school in the morning wondering how, when and if they would return home. They've never had 15 or 30 or 60 seconds to reach a bomb shelter.

And neither has Obama. At least, that's the charitable view of Obama. The harsher view - and one which is apparently still outside the Israeli mainstream but is within the realm of things I find to be at least possible if not likely - is that Obama is determined to destroy 'post-colonialism,' and sees Israel as its most obvious manifestation.

Still wondering which 54% of 'mainstream Israeli' views Goldberg rejects....

1 Comments:

Israel needs to publicly question the value that it gains or garners from the US diaspora at all? Two different countries. If the American diaspora is a lost cause then so be it. The the American Jews are simply saying they will never accept Israel no matter what unless and until they become the PLO. Ok then, that's called an offer you can't accept. Tell the Goldbergs and Rudorens and the J-Streets and the whomevers that one of the great things about their having been fortunate enough to live in the US is they're free to express whatever opinion they like. Good luck, goodbye and godspeed.

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com